I’ve been seeing a disturbing trend of late: a sharp rise in what I call are BFFs: blunt force fundraisers. Nonprofit leaders willfully skipping planning to jump straight to asking. As the author of Ask Without Fear!®, you know I am an advocate for asking. But...
Capital campaigns are a wild roller coaster ride of vision-fueled excitement followed by long stretches of slow. slogging. work. The slow parts require incredible discipline to stay on course. I know because I’ve helped run 18 capital campaigns at schools,...
I recently blogged about a storytelling tip for nonprofit leaders that I learned from Kindra Hall. The tip is especially powerful in nonprofit fundraising. Kindra took the millenia old story structure – beginning, middle, end – and reframed it as normal,...
Whether your fiscal year starts now or is only part of the way through, January is a good time to evaluate your fundraising progress. To help you’re planning, here’s an email I sent our Fundraising Kick subscribers yesterday. Good morning, Kickers!...
Have you ever struggled with the active voice vs. passive voice in your fundraising letters? It’s so easy to slip into the passive voice, thinking it sounds more “objective” or “business-like.” But active voice is easier to read and is...
I just sent this out to everyone getting weekly #FollowUpFriday email reminders: It’s #FollowUpFriday!It’s Follow Up Friday! Over on the http://followupfriday.org/ page, D.C. Dreger quoted a John Grisham character calling today “fish Friday.”...
